Bride threatens to elope after parents reveal their plan to ruin her wedding; 'I don't care that you dropped $30K on this, I'm OUT!' AITA? UPDATED 3X
When this bride has big plans to get back at her parents and sister, she asks the internet:
"I’m planning to elope/get revenge because my parents and sister have plans to ruin my wedding. AITA? + UPDATE?"
Maybe this is the wrong place but I’m going to explode with rage and disappointment at my family. My baby sister is the golden child. Or maybe that’s unfair to say. She survived cancer when she was a child. It was the darkest period of my parents life.
I don’t remember much of it because my parents shielded me from the horrific truth. I knew she was sick and I remember all my childhood spent in hospitals but never did I know that my sister almost died until many many years later. I was 12 and she was 10.
After she beat her sickness she became the obvious favorite in the house. She got everything she wanted and sometimes it was at my expense. I resented that but I always heard that I was a naughty girl for being jealous of my hero sister.
My sister grew up to be a brat. Now 20 years later she’s still bratty although we get along a lot better than when we were teenagers/young adults.
My wedding is in July. Neither my fiancé nor I have the money for a big wedding. We settled for small wedding (30 people) at my fiancé’s grandparents who have a beautiful house with lake view.
My parents, when they heard this said no way and offered to pay for a bigger wedding and better venue. We didn’t agree at first but later we did not want to disappoint them. It seemed like it was important to them.
Last week my mom invited me over. My dad, mom and my sisters boyfriend asked me what I would think if my sister’s boyfriend proposed to my sisters during the wedding so it becomes an engagement party as well as a wedding...
(mom has seen reels on instagram about people proposing to maid of honors/bridesmaids and thought it cute, my sister is my maid of honor).
I said NO, that’s ridiculous and laughed. My mom was livid. She told me I was selfish and ungrateful and I accused her of favoritism. I told her I always thought it was odd that you’d pay for my wedding but now I know the reason why. She started crying and kicked me out of the house.
Later both she and my future brother in law sent me texts warning me from exposing their plan to my sister. My fiancé was disappointed but not sure what we could do. My parents have spent almost $30K and its too late to cancel.
My mother called me today to plan the proposal and I begged her not to ruin my day. She told me since she was paying she can make requests and that I should let go of my jealousy and resentment towards my sister because she’s innocent in all of this. But the thing is, this day will be about my sister.
I told my fiancé to ask his grandparents if they’re still willing to host my wedding. If they’re I’ll revert to our original plan. If not I will just elope. Not sure yet if I’m going to tell my family and cancel the wedding or just let them have their grand proposal party. None of my family is invited to my wedding, including my sister. Thank you for listening.
UPDATE 1:
I can’t tell her since she has no idea her bf is going to propose and this would ruin the whole thing. At the same time it would be ruined anyway when I elope and she wonders why.
But as of this morning, my mom still says they’re going ahead with the proposal even without my help (the original plan is that I should be the one making the speech and telling my sister there’s a surprise for her and today is...
about us two bla bla bla and then her girlfriends and boyfriend do som rehearsed dance to their favorite song and then he proposes).
If I know her well she wouldn’t mind being proposed to on my wedding day so it’s a lose lose situation for me. Sometimes I think maybe I should agree and get it over with but I’m so angry and my fiancé actually doesn’t want me to cave this time, since we both were happy with the backyard wedding.
We even asked mom to donate what she had planned on spending on the wedding to the childhood cancer fund, in our names like what we’ve requested as a wedding gift from our guests, but she insisted on a party for the extended family.
I had a back and forth texting with my future brother in law, where he called me jealous and bitter. I have now blocked him. He texted my fiancé apologizing but We didn’t answer.
My plan now is to get married a week earlier at my grandparents in law with 20 guests, because we have managed to change our honeymoon trip booking to be 3 instead of 2 weeks with departure day the morning after the wedding.
My mom’s wedding is already paid in full with no refund possibilities with such short notice(3 weeks). That was the whole point I think. To spring this information on me so close to the wedding date so I can’t really do anything about it.
Now they will have 1 weeks heads up anyway when they see my wedding pictures on social media. They will probably just turn the wedding into an engagement party and have a blast! So its a win win I hope.
Before we give you OP's major updates (after the wedding), let's take a look at some of the top responses:
inquisitivepilgrim writes:
Lots of comments seem to delight in the ways you can cause maximum pain to those who have offended you.
Mostly, I want to say how sad I am that instead of looking forward to what should be a wonderful day for you and your future husband that you are finding yourself having to do damage control and grieve broken relationships.
I don't have any idea as to how you can fix this. Only thing that I do suggest is to do your best to come out of this being able to feel good about your choices, what you say, and what you do.
You don't have to make your family happy or do what they want. You are not required to have a ongoing relationship with them. You do have to live with yourself through the years. Do things in a way that makes you proud of you.
mikeg7 writes:
I remember attending a wedding where one of the cousins came up after the best man's speech and asked for the mic.
He then called up his girlfriend to the dance floor in front of the bride and groom's table, got down on one knee, and proposed. It did not go over well with any of the bride's family (for obvious reasons). It was a dick move.
The only thing that topped that for drama in that family was when another cousin confronted two of her male relatives for molesting her when she was a young teen (they were four and five years older) at the wedding.
Ironically, it was at the wedding of the couple that got engaged in paragraph 1. The confrontation happened in the bar, rather than on the dance floor, but it literally tore that family apart (and didn't go over well with the bride and groom either).
I was dating another cousin, and we broke up soon after, but it was pretty fg heated in the bar that night.
kikiv writes:
Tell your family that it’s trashy to propose to someone at a wedding and that there’s no way that’s happening. Your parents offered to pay for the wedding as a gift. Gifts don’t come with strings. Let them know that since you know that they will not back down, you will not be showing up.
Because they’ve been so adamant about this and they’ve treated you like 2nd best your whole life, you can’t trust that they’ll abandon this plan even if they promise they won’t d9 it.
Follow your original plan and just let them make your wedding into an engagement party and then block them all and go NC. Why keep these people in your life after everything they’ve done to you?
ghostphoenix writes:
Have the wedding at future grandparents lake house. Here's what I would do: Tell no one you aren't showing up, invite the few loved ones to the lake wedding. Have a close friend that doesn't mind the sacrifice of missing alittle bit of the festivities, go to the parental wedding and make an announcement to those gathered.
"Greetings, OP and fiance will not be coming today, there are reasons that will be obvious shortly. They regret that certain pressures were placed on them and taking away to joy of their day.
BIL has an announcement that had to be made today of all days and JNMom highly encouraged it. BIL please come up for your special announcement. Please enjoy the rest of the party, food and drinks already provided."
Embarrass the hell out of them. Let them use the 30k for a super expensive engagement party and I hope for their sakes that sister isn't mortified. I know she is the golden child but this isn't her doing unless she made a comment of how special it would be and the rest ran with it.
Op, I really hope you enjoy your special day the way you and fiance want it to be. Many blessings to you both.
mobiledif0 writes:
Honestly I don’t know how your parents don’t see the issue. I would be like “mom, how would you feel if it was your wedding”. It really does sound like a setup, and they only wanted you to have a big wedding for it.
I would honestly tell them I was cancelling the wedding, because either way they’re losing money or looking ridiculous to the rest of your family.
You’re not jealous, you’re getting married. What is supposed to be one of the biggest milestones of your life, is something you are being asked to take a step to the side for.
That is not fair, I would be livid if I was in the same situation or if my partner’s parents were to put this kind of strain on her before her wedding. I hope you get the wedding you want.
Also make sure that nothing from the venue/ceremony is in your name incase your family decides not to pay any debts owed because you eloped/cancel.
accer9 writes:
Honestly, I WOULD cancel/change the food/drinks if possible. Then get married as you plan, a week early. Then they can go to the venue that mom paid for and do their engagement.
I'm of two minds about going to the venue on the wedding day. On the one hand, It would be fun to go in shorts, sandals, and t-shirts with your wedding photos on them.....just for the "F-you factor.
I would also consider enlisting a willing friend (If I lived near you I would HAPPILY volunteer!) to greet the guests and make the announcement that, "due to mom and dad harassing OP and trying to hijack her wedding for their golden child and...
make it all about her, her fiance and him proposing, the happily MARRIED couple has decided to take an extended honeymoon and wish no further contact with OPs parents or BIL. And by the way, It was a beautiful wedding!"
At the very least, I would text SOMEONE that you know will be there and let them know.....or set a delayed post on social media to post about the time the wedding should have started!
I say to cancel the food/drinks because it's REALLY hard to have a party without them.....
acrobatic7 writes:
Maybe discuss the situation with your fiance's grandparents because the sudden decision to change the venue back to their house may put them in a difficult position time-wise for preparation.
If that's the case you can elope. Can you imagine how much silent criticism your family will receive when others figure out what really went down? Shame shame shame.
I hope your mother comes to you, wraps her arms around you and tells you how sorry she is, not just for this but for all the times you ever felt less than fully completely loved.
And I hope she tells you that she wants more than anything for you to have the most special wedding day in the world, including not sharing the spotlight with anyone but your husband. And I hope she tells you that she wants you to have all the best memories of that day and wants you to live happily ever after.
A wedding trumps a proposal. Did they sponsor a big proposal event for you? I thought not. I hope your mom will see the larger picture and realize this may be her last opportunity to salvage a relationship with you.
Sometimes the size of these decisions aren't obvious in the heat of the moment. Sweetheart, I'm wishing you all the best of everything.
urmylender writes:
I'm eloping with my partner of 7+ years because of my Sister. She is currently creating havoc in a feud with my brother and since she was small every family event had to be recentred on her...
I haven't had a birthday since she was born (as she was born the day before my birthday) and the nievety of me at 7 years old telling my mom it was the best birthday present ever.
Basically my 88 year old Nan and my Aunt are the only two people in either family that know because they are witnesses and we aren't going to tell our parents, my partner escaped an abusive marriage to a guy 20 years her senior when she was 22 (he was mid 30s she was 16 when he groomed her) so she is more than happy not to have a big wedding.
Bonus is all the cash saved is going towards a mortgages and a kick ass honeymoon.
What you could do if you wanted the path of least resistance is on the down low have a wedding with only people you trust and who care about you, don't tell your parents then on the original wedding date go ahead with what is now actually a faux wedding for your sisters proposal.
You get to say FU to your parents who tricked you, you get a wedding with people you love and trust and your sister gets her proposal. Wait a few months after the proposal and have a heart to heart with your sister, I'd say she'd be pissed with your parents if she knew what they did.
MAJOR UPDATE (POST WEDDING):
I really want to thank everyone that showed me support. I’m now happily married and in Como Italy for my honeymoon. I tried to stay away from my phone but I was so curious to see my family’s reaction to my elopement a week earlier than planned. It was really ugly.
I must start with saying that I really tried my best to negotiate and compromise with my family and truly explain that this was hurting me.
I have nothing against my sister and tbh nothing against her getting engaged on my wedding but the principle that it was made very clear to me that I had absolutely no opinion or say in what was going to happen on what supposed to be my special day was where I drew the line.
It wasn’t a wish or a request. It was a matter of fact and it was decided. So I told my mom that I’m NOT going to attend the party she’s paid for. Maybe they should just make it an engagement party instead. She got very upset and told me that the engagement was supposed to be a surprise.
I told her that I was just giving her the heads up since she’s about to lose an insane amount of money. She didn’t take me seriously, like I wasn’t going to cancel my wedding because of a trivial thing.
What she didn’t know is that I’ve already made plans to get married a week earlier at my grandparents in law. We invited our closest friends and some even had to book earlier flights and take more vacation days, for these people I was extra grateful.
What was left was my sister. I’d been back and forth arguing and negotiating with my parents and FBIL. I decided that even if this would ruin her surprise, I had to tell her so I did.
She wasn’t really happy with my mom but she was more upset that I ruined her surprise and she, as I expected thought I could’ve just sucked it up and gone with the flow. I didn’t tell her about my new wedding date.
The wedding was dreamlike! In the back of my head I was hurt the people who “loved” me the most weren’t there but I pushed that thought away and refused to let it ruin our day.
My husband was amazing he promised to make me happy for the rest of my life and to make up for every heartbreak I’ve experienced in my past. My in laws surprised us with upgrading our honeymoon to a 5star hotel.
I had my friends and some cousins and my favorite aunt attending. We asked them not to livestream or upload any pictures to SM until we’re already on our honeymoon. We also asked them not to engage in any altercations online with my family.
Today my mom made long fb/twitter/instagram posts bashing me and my husband. Calling me ungrateful and disrespectful with pictures of my wedding. Telling people I’ve cost her a big chunk of her savings and she’s now demanding compensation.
Her fb post was shared about 200 times and the majority of my extended family is angry with me. She never once tried to contact me(I really thought she would bombard my phone) instead both her and my dad announced that they’re cutting me off and are expecting compensation.
FBIL commented that I ruined his surprise and my sister made a post about being tired of jealous b’s and haters. None of the people we invited has commented even tho some of them were directly attacked, so they respected our wishes.
I don’t know if they’re going to go ahead and turn the wedding into an engagement party now. I really hope they do so the money isn’t wasted. It’s on Saturday. I’m sorry the update got too long but with the amount of people asking for an update I hope this was what you wanted.
PS: English isn’t my native language and its too long of a post to proofreading especially when it’s written on my iPhone.
UPDATE 2:
Yes they did and they blew the internet with pictures and posts about how magical the night was. Little sister made sure to write about haters not ruining her special day and how she’s surrounded by the people that mattered.
From what I gathered about 30-40 % of the guests that were invited showed up. This means they can’t sue me for the wedding so all is good.